Summer was on the horizon. After such a harsh winter I was super-excited that summer was coming. As far as I was concerned, it couldn’t get here fast enough! I hadn’t been this excited about summertime since back in my school days. I’d recently had surgery that forced me to take some time to rest and focus on my recovery. More than once during that rest period I imagined how nice it would be if I could take the entire summer off to recuperate, enjoy and just have fun. I thought of a few of my educator friends who have summers off with pay and had a moment of envy. Then it hit me! With the proper planning, preparation and some help, I too could have the summer off! I was inspired by the 10 Business Mistakes to Avoid for the Inspiring Woman to do just that.

I went to work immediately on coming up with a strategy that would position my business to be able to “close” for summer vacation (which I will be sharing with you at a later date). Despite my best efforts and the fact that it was already too late for me to make some of the preparations I had in mind, I decided to take the summer off anyway. My need for the time off outweighed the benefits of me staying active in the business at my ordinary level and/or the consequences of slowing it down for the summer.

Well, here I am back to work after taking three months off for the summer! IWGN wasn’t exactly closed–just took a break from blog posts and social media. (I promise, for next year’s summer break there will be no interruptions in blog posts or social media). I continued to answer your questions and emails, got caught up on some admin stuff, developed some ideas I’ve been toying with (check out Emerge Coaching), reflected on IWGN’s first year and how to make things better and more exciting for you. (I’d love to hear any ideas you have about this–email me or leave a comment below.)

On the personal side, I took some time to recover, relax, renew, rejuvenate, reflect, revamp, reinvent and (possibly) relocate. (How’s that for keeping it all R’s! 🙂 ) Some of the highlights of my summer were:

– Started going to meditation classes

– Took part in RESO Your Life, a unique weight-management & stress management program